Nick Oxford/Reuters
- The Texas summer has been brutal, with some regions seeing 30 straight days of triple-digit temps.
- Renewable energy has kept the power grid "remarkably stable," an expert says.
- But as extreme heat continues and renewable energy decreases, the Texas grid is feeling the strain.
The heat is inescapable in Texas this summer.
Austin hit triple-digit temperatures for 34 days straight. Dallas hit record-high heat for three consecutive days. El Paso, meanwhile, has seen 56 triple-digit days this summer, the third-highest frequency in the state's history.
As these extreme temperatures continue to bake Texas, residents are cranking up their air conditioning, straining the state's power grid. From June 27 to August 12, Texas broke 10 all-time peak power demand records, according to data from the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, an organization that operates 90% of the state's electric load.
"The grid has held up remarkably well," Emily Foxhall, an energy reporter for the Texas Tribune, told CBS.
That resilience, which lasted most of the summer, is thanks to the state's reliance on renewable energy, Foxhall added.
But as a heat wave persisted through late August and now into early September, and energy from renewables decreased, the power grid has again come under heavy strain. On September 6, Texas issued a level two emergency alert warning residents about low energy reserves. A day later, the Electric Reliability Council of Texas issued an energy conservation appeal.
Just two weeks earlier, Texans received a warning that the energy grid could not continue at its current pace and that future grid outages were possible.
Texas produces more wind-powered electricity than any other state and is a national leader in solar energy alongside California and Florida. Texas is also third in the nation for clean energy job growth, adding 5,100 jobs in 2022.
Joshua Rhodes, a research scientist with the Webber Energy Group at the University of Texas, told Insider that solar power has proven especially key this summer.
"We have twice as much solar as we had last year, and so the same sun that's heating up all the buildings and driving the air conditioning use is making electricity," Rhodes told Insider. "Not only are we setting demand records, but we're also setting solar demand records simultaneously."
On August 10, wind and solar energy generated 24.69% of the needed energy during the state's peak hour of power usage, data from the Electric Reliability Council of Texas shows.
"With the growing penetration of new, variable renewables displacing conventional dispatchable generation for power, we'll need to rely more on renewables during peak conditions than we ever have before," a spokesperson for the Electric Reliability Council of Texas told Insider.
Some state and national Republicans, however, have pushed back against legislation that would further strengthen the clean energy sources keeping the air conditioners running in Texas this summer.
One such law includes the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act, which in part set aside $370 billion for investment in clean energy, primarily benefiting Texas and other states with existing clean energy infrastructure. In particular, the act makes it less expensive to install solar panels and incentivizes the purchase of energy-efficient appliances, which could help alleviate pressure on the Texas power grid.
Texas has also turned to incentivizing large energy consumers to limit their power usage. In August, the Electric Reliability Council of Texas paid bitcoin miner Riot $31.7 million in energy credits to reduce its energy usage by 95%, according to a press release from the company.